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Chatham’s Congress reps react to Trump impeachment inquiry

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From left, U.S. Rep. Mark Walker, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and U.S. Sen. Thom Tills (all R-N.C.) reacted quickly to news of an impeachment inquiry on President Donald Trump.

Photos courtesy of News + Record

Posted
Friday, October 4, 2019 7:00 am

CN+R Staff Report

The three men representing Chatham County in Congress have reacted to the announcement by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s intention to begin an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

The inquiry was announced after news broke of a call between Trump and the president of Ukraine in which Trump purportedly asked his Ukraine counterpart to investigate the son of former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden is seeking the Democratic nomination to oppose Trump next year. Specific details are unclear at this point.

Impeachment does not remove a president from office. The House needs a simple majority to pass articles of impeachment, while two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict the accused party of the alleged crimes. Only if the Senate convicts can the president or the accused party be removed from office.

U.S. Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), who represents Chatham in the House of Representatives, said in a statement Tuesday that Pelosi and the Democrats are “acting in Russia’s interest to further divide us” and utilizing a literary metaphor.

“House Democrats have been tilting at windmills in search of impeachment for the last three years and they now think they have found their Don Quixote in a leaker who is pushing secondhand rumors,” Walker said. “After saying it ‘divides the country,’ Speaker Pelosi now says impeachment is a ‘healing process’ and is taking an action supported by barely one-third of American voters.

“Efforts to remove the elected President of the United States with no evidence of wrongdoing would leave the country even more divided and polarized than it is now. The Speaker knows this, but thinks appeasing the most radical liberals in her caucus is more important than the stability and prosperity of our nation.”

Walker was asked by Trump earlier this year to consider running for the U.S. Senate in 2020, but turned the president down. Speaking to the News + Record recently, he did not rule out a future run.

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is facing a primary challenge next year but has already won the president’s endorsement, said Wednesday that Pelosi “should be embarrassed” after the release of a transcript of the call between Trump and the president of Ukraine.

“The transcript debunks the Democrats’ false claims against President Trump and demonstrates that their call to impeach him is a total farce,” Tillis said in a statement. “This is yet another pathetic attempt by Democrats to destroy President Trump with falsehoods to overturn the results of the 2016 election. It has not worked in the past, and it will not work now. The Democrats’ obsession with defeating President Trump using any means necessary is now threatening the federal government’s ability to focus on real solutions like securing our border, rebuilding our military, and cutting more taxes for hardworking Americans.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has not yet released a public statement on his website or social media on the inquiry or the transcript, but was part of a Washington Post report in which Burr responded to the president’s desire to investigate the Biden-Ukraine connection.

The story said that “Burr’s faction of the Senate GOP has a darker, frustrated view of Trump’s handling of Ukraine,” and that “Burr said Wednesday said he had no interest in investigating the Biden-Ukraine angle.”

“That’s not my lane, but I’m only focused on gathering the facts on this piece,” he told the Post, referring to Russian interference in the 2016 election. “It just kind of morphs into that same cast of characters, what they were doing.”